Common Core Knowledge Standards: An Apologia
February 12, 2014.
According to an article in the New York Times yesterday, "Lawmakers have proposed a two-year moratorium on the use of standardized test scores in the evaluations, after complaints that teachers have had problems adapting to the new curriculum standards known as the Common Core. Test scores plummeted last year after the state rewrote the exams to match the new, tougher standards."
The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics were developed by a group of educators under the auspices of the National Governors Association in 2009. Between February 10, 2010 and June 16, 2012, forty-five of the fifty states in the United States became members of the Common Core State Standards Initiative. Alaska, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia have not adopted the initiative; Minnesota has adopted the English Language Arts standards but not the Mathematics standards.
They seem eminently sensible to me: The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy. The Standards for Mathematical Practice describe varieties of expertise that mathematics educators at all levels should seek to develop in their students. These practices rest on important “processes and proficiencies” with longstanding importance in mathematics education. The first of these are the NCTM [National Council of Teachers of Mathematics] process standards of problem solving, reasoning and proof, communication, representation, and connections. The second are the strands of mathematical proficiency specified in the National Research Council’s report "Adding It Up": adaptive reasoning, strategic competence, conceptual understanding (comprehension of mathematical concepts, operations and relations), procedural fluency (skill in carrying out procedures flexibly, accurately, efficiently and appropriately), and productive disposition (habitual inclination to see mathematics as sensible, useful, and worthwhile, coupled with a belief in diligence and one’s own efficacy). From the Common Core State Standards Initiative website.
Why would anyone object to there being a comprehensive list of the topics and concepts students should be learning during any given academic year?
And yet, there's a growing backlash against these standards. According to conservative detractors, with the implementation of the Common Core Standards the federal government will be dictating content taught in every school—yet another massive overreach into state and local decision-making; according to liberal detractors, it's a mandate fromcorporate-school reformers bent on profitizing schoolchildren; according to libertarian detractors, the problem isn't poor standards, it's bad political incentives…besides which, making standards uniform across the country reduces the benefits of competition between states which vie with each other to attract residents and businesses. Teachers claim that the adoption of the Standards will strip all spontaneity from classrooms, push the arts even further out of schools, introduceconditions of rigor for which many students are not ready, and end up being used to rate them—and the schools in which they teach—unfairly. Parents ("white suburban moms," according to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, "…soccer moms…" according to a rather snarky New York Post) are pushing back "on the grounds that their own children are so special that they shouldn’t have to suffer such burdens." I prefer to summarize the attitude of parents with the more reasoned comment sent in an email from a dear friend and trusted colleague: "My bright children who both received numerous academic awards last year scored 2s on the Common Core State tests for Math and ELA ([daughter's name] actually has a 4 for ELA). Both scored above the state average in all test areas and [son's name] even had a perfect score in one section of Math, but still was deemed not proficient. Both kids said they were tested on material not taught.Teachers are implementing the Common Core and still do not have the teaching & student materials...a huge injustice to the learning process [emphasis mine] and the joy my kids found in learning. So, I am not in favor of Common Core...I can't stand to watch the light go out of my kids eyes."
In my opinion, the problem with the Common Core Standards isn't the standards per se; or the fact that curricula hadn't been in place and teachers hadn't been in possession of important teaching materials (what the New York Times called in yesterday's article, "the bumpy Common Core rollout") resulting in students being tested on topics they hadn't been taught. No, the real problem is: education officials and politicians are superimposing the Standards on a theory of elementary-education instruction that is inherently antithetical to the rigor and accountability implied by the Standards. This theory has been around for almost a century but actually has its roots in the anti-intellectualism of the Romantic Period of the 1800s.
Romanticism developed out of a sense of disillusionment with the rationalism of the Enlightenment. Romanticists believed that the emphasis on scientific advancement and the ideals of common sense, reason, and elegance of style that flourished during the Enlightenment had created an oppressive and conformist society. In general, the Romanticist felt that man was essentially good and that he should not be fettered by artificial rules and regulations. The new, "Romantic" ideal stressed heart over mind, nature over science, powerful emotion over cerebral asceticism, imagination, simplicity of style and individuality. These tenets of romanticism are evident in the literature, painting, music, and philosophy of the Age. In 1750, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, considered the greatest of Romantic philosophers, began his career as a writer with the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences in which he denounced modern culture and advocated a return to nature and all things natural. In 1762 he wrote Émile, an epoch-making treatise on education, the guiding philosophy of which can be summed up accordingly: "Whatever is natural is good; whatever is not is evil. Civilization is a monumental evil because it has perverted man by destroying his primitive simplicity and purity." From antiquity through the Enlightenment the role of education was to take the ignorant, unformed child and imbue him with knowledge and self-control. In Émile, Rousseau wrote that each child should be allowed to develop naturally at his or her own pace, spontaneously following his or her own unique instincts; and that education should be brought into harmony with the natural development of the child. Rousseau's belief has evolved into the conviction, asserted by American parents and teachers alike, that early childhood should be a time of innocence and joy…a time for being a child. They feel that the primary role of elementary school teachers is to ensure that the learning environment be responsive to children’s interests and individual needs. Schools should not impose discipline and hard work on very young children because "there would be time for all that later on."
Unfortunately for many students, "later on" comes when they are entering high school—and by then, of course, it's too late.
There is, I believe, a genuine disconnect between what is needed for real math to be learned and the math learning experiences and expectations of elementary school teachers and parents who oppose the rigor of the Common Core Mathematics Standards. Many, many parents and the vast majority of elementary school teachers didn't do well in math themselves and, as a result of their own experiences, often think of math as something that only some people can learn—and it's no big deal if you can't. Having taken at most two "math for elementary school educators" (any relation to "math for poets"?) courses in college, elementary school teachers have no idea what the study and practical application of real math in the real world entails; furthermore, they had no incentive to question what they learned about teaching math intheir pedagogical course work (taught by people who, again, have no idea what the study and practical application of real math in the real world entails).
(In an article in the New York Times on December 28, 2006, it was revealed that Randi Weingarten, then president of the New York City teachers’ union, “was left flummoxed by a question about fractions yesterday when she was on ‘The Brian Lehrer Show’ on WNYC radio…” The guest host, Mike Pesca, asked her to add 1/3 and 1/4. [According to the New York State P - 12 Common Core Learning Standards for Mathematics, adding fractions with different denominators is fifth grade work.] Ms. Weingarten was clearly stumped and she stalled for time before finally saying, "I would actually have to do it on paper…the old fashioned way." I beg to differ: the "old-fashioned way" would involve doing it quickly in your head by using a well-known "trick" for adding two fractions that have the numerator "1" but different denominators. The new denominator is the product of the denominators: (3 x 4); the new numerator is the sum of the denominators: (3 + 4). So 1/3 + 1/4 = 7/12.)
When my friend sent me the aforementioned email, she included a link to the transcript of a speech delivered by an elementary school teacher at a college in upstate New York last fall. "I personally know this teacher" she wrote, "and his synopsis of Common Core is right on."
He didn't actually mention the Common Core Standards during his speech; rather, he spoke about "modules," daily instructional scripts, that his school district was requiring all elementary school teachers to use. He defined a module ("aday-by-day, minute-by-minute, step-by-step direction manuals that actually forces teachers to teach with a stopwatch") and further commented: "Topics of study and teaching methods are determined by the module, and teachers have no authority to change either the content or the procedures. Modules prevent a teacher from shaping the learning environment in ways that are responsive to children’s interests, passions, and, most importantly, their individual needs. These automated teaching methods eliminate the possibility for wonder, curiosity, and self-direction." To illustrate what his students were losing as a consequence of implementation of the modules, he told a story about a year-long project in which his students had been involved in as a result of reading a newspaper article about orphan striped hyena cubs in Mombasa, Kenya. Upon learning that the striped hyena was nearing endangered species status, the class decided to take action by raising awareness of the striped hyena's plight. Their campaign was multi-faceted, encompassing online research, interviewing scientists, organizing petitions, distributing flyers, holding informational school-wide assemblies in other elementary schools, and posting glogs. The teacher spoke of his "students’ hard work, willingness to immerse themselves in academic topics well beyond their educational level, adroit handling of interdisciplinary content, activism, and impressive collaborative skills." These traits are revealed, the teacher claimed, "when students are encouraged to apply what they are learning to real-life issues of their own concern. In fact, in this environment, compassion, industriousness, creativity, and democracy flourish." According to him, all of this, "every element of the story," is lost when modules are used.
As the teacher described his students, vivid and compelling images of their bustling little bodies and eager, happy faces appeared in my mind. For a moment I was deluded: How could the use of modules that "force children to endure tiresome repetition, a single instructional approach that assumes all children learn at the same pace, and very long periods of sitting with little or no mental and physical breaks" be justified when contrasted with such an idyll? But almost immediately, other images, the many anxious and angry faces of Helicon, Inc.'s former students, pushed insistently into my brain. "Yeah, it all sounds so wonderful (they seemed to be saying), but did those kids learn the math they're supposed to in third grade so that they can do fourth grade math when they're in fourth grade and not when they're 20 (or 25 or 30 or 40, etc.) years old like us? 'Cause if we can do it now we could have done it back then—and saved ourselves a lot of time and money and heartache!"
Next: A Short History of the "Math Wars"
© 2014 Allannah Thomas
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